The Tor Challenge: Help Strengthen Anonymous Online Activism

In early June, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) issued its first Tor Challenge, to build Tor relays to link activists and keep them anonymous. Now EFF is calling on participants to create instructional videos on how to set up Tor relays.

The EFF has issued its third Tor Challenge, calling on those with knowledge of setting up Tor relays to create instructional videos for the benefit of activists and dissidents worldwide.

Tor is an online anonymous network. Tor networks are considered critical for delivering leaked documents and whistleblowing communiqués to journalists. And as with all of the most ethical and democratic software—and in the spirit of the internet and hacking’s earliest days—Tor is open-source and the network is free to use.

Tor conceals a user’s identity and network activity by creating several layers of encryption, also known as “onion routing.” Each onion node unwraps a layer of encryption, thereby ensuring that the full message and source is not visible as it moves its way through Tor.

EFF is calling on those with Tor know-how to film instructional videos in operating systems other than Mac (which already has an EFF-produced video, which can be watched below).

According to EFF, “Videos may be submitted for the following categories: (1) Windows 7, (2) Windows XP, (3) Debian-based Linux, (4) Red Hat-based Linux, (5) Other Unix-based Operating Systems, and (6) Setting up Virtual Machines.” And the video format, “must be approximately four to six minutes in length, in English, and contain clear and intelligible video and audio.”

This is a great idea on the part of EFF, as it is absolutely essential that we as a free people have knowledge of how to set up secret lines of communication with each other as the global economy and American empire continue their convulsions toward paralysis.

And be sure to check back with Death + Taxes on July 12th when the winners are announced on the other instructional videos are available for viewing.